Marketing jargon is boring–or at least it was, until today. Viacom Velocity, an agency that bills itself as “a full-service integrated marketing and creative content team within Viacom’s groups, built to super-serve our advertising partners,” is behind a ridiculous music video in which Instagram star The Fat Jewish and musical mastermind Todrick Hall rap about the merits of big data.

In the video, The Fat Jewish, whose real name is Josh Ostrovsky, stars as a personified version of the concept of big data. Hall’s character, Hadoop, is essentially one of Big Data’s hype men. He uses all sorts of marketing jargon to inform viewers about the ways they can use large data sets to better inform themselves about the purchasing habits of consumers. It’s a very silly idea, but it’s several times more entertaining than the typical PowerPoint deck.

“We thought rap worked perfectly as a way to infuse all the data jargon being thrown around, and a rap music-video parody was perfect coming from the company that made the music-video genre famous,” Viacom Velocity EVP Niels Schuurmans told Adweek.

Hall, whose inventive music videos have scored hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, will soon star on one of Viacom’s TV channels. Todrick, which will go behind the scenes of his YouTube videos, will arrive on MTV on August 31st.

The “Big Data” music video joins several other projects on the Viacom Velocity YouTube channel. Earlier in 2015, the agency released “How To Raise A YouTube Star,” a mockumentary that pokes fun at YouTube and all the subgenres it contains.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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DramaFever is getting an infusion of classic British entertainment. The New York-based streaming platform, known for its focus on international TV and movies, has closed a licensing deal with BBC Worldwide North America for the U.S. streaming rights to 18 BBC titles.

DramaFever added five BBC titles to its streaming platform on July 1, 2015, and will add the remaining 13 shows over the next few months. The online video service’s premium subscribers now have access to the first five titles: Tess of the D’Urbervilles (starring Eddie Redmayne), Pride and Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth), Upstairs, Downstairs (Keeley Hawes), Little Dorrit (Claire Foy), and Miss Austen Regrets (Olivia Williams).

Here’s a list of the remaining BBC titles DramaFever will start streaming in the upcoming months:

Sense and Sensibility (Premieres July 31) – Sense and Sensibility is a story of two young sisters on a voyage of burgeoning sexual and romantic discovery. Stars: Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, David Morrissey with Dominic Cooper

Cranford (Premieres August 28) – The ladies of Cranford adore good gossip and romance. But change is in the air, as the unwelcome grasp of the Industrial Revolution rapidly approaches their rural market-town. Stars: Judi Dench and Julia McKenzie

Emma (Premieres August 28) – Based on the classic Jane Austen novel about a matchmaker so focused on the happiness of her friends, that she may be ignoring her own. Stars: Romola Garai, Michael Gambon and Jonny Lee Miler

Jane Eyre (Premieres September 30) – A shy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he’s hiding a terrible secret. Stars: Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens

Bedlam (Premieres October 30) – Drama and supernatural chills in this series center on a haunted insane asylum-turned-apartment building. Stars: Hugo Speer with Theo James

London Hospital Series (Premieres November 30) – Case notes, ward diaries and memoirs from archives at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, bring real doctors, nurses and patients from a Edwardian London hospital back to life. Stars Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones)

Bleak House (Premieres December 2015) –Based on the Charles Dickens novel, Bleak House focuses on the injustices of the 19th century English legal system. Stars: Gillian Anderson and Carey Mulligan

Founded by Seung Bak and Suk Park in 2009 as a way to discover Korean dramas, DramaFever has turned into a top destination for international television shows and movies. The online video business was acquired by Japan’s SoftBank Internet and Media, Inc. in October 2014, and is working on releasing a horror-based subscription service alongside AMC Networks.

DramaFever boasts more than 700 titles from over 15 countries around the world. The online video site claims to reach over 20 million monthly users.

Filed under: Articles, BBC, News, Studios by Bree Brouwer
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Fantasy franchises like X-Men and Game of Thrones are filled with lore, and a passionate nerd with brightly-colored hair is using her knowledge of said lore, as well as her acceptance of cutting-edge distribution methods, to capture viewers who want to dive deep into fantasy and sci-fi worlds.

Comicbookgirl19, whose articulate and insightful pop culture commentary initially allowed her to rack up over 370,000 subscribers and tens of millions of views on YouTube, has found crucial monetary success since she began selling some of her long, more in-depth and detailed videos directly to fans through Vimeo On Demand. CBG19, as she is known to many online, exemplifies the benefits of the alternate distribution platforms available to creators today, that let them connect directly to their biggest fans and offer more entertainment and educational value for a greater return on their video-making investments. I could explain exactly what I mean, but I’d rather let her do that for me. We asked

[Another Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.]

Tubefilter: What made you decide to distribute some of your Epic Histories via Vimeo On Demand?

Comicbookgirl19: My partner Tyson [Wheeler, the director of the show] and I, we believe a la carte services like Vimeo On Demand are the future of how people will be experiencing content, especially if you look at HBO Now, which I predicted a few years ago. Bundled cable, an outdated model, is finally starting to die out a bit. Vimeo is a part of that. We are putting ourselves on the forefront of this paradigm we see happening. We don’t believe our viewers will buy off YouTube because they come to YouTube for free content, so we decided to up our production and runtime, and we went to Vimeo.

TF: Have you noticed any interesting differences in the ways your fans consume your videos across YouTube and Vimeo?

CBG19: We’ve been putting premium content on Vimeo On Demand. It has much higher production value. We’re at that next step where it’s time to leave the nest a little bit and do other things. It’s time to make higher quality content.

TF: Why do you think your fans pay for content when you have so much of it available for free?

CBG19: We’ve had a really loyal audience. We do have a small percentage of people who support us monetarily for whatever we’re doing. They’ve made it possible to take these next steps by supporting our Kickstarter campaign and buying our shirts. I believe they want to see us continue to grow because they like what we’re doing. They ask us, “What can they do with more of a budget?” They want to see that and we can provide it for them thanks to this wonderful ecosystem.

TF: So what in particular do you do to make these new videos more premium than what is available for free on YouTube?

CBG19: For Epic History X-Men Volume 2, we built an entirely new set, which took a lot of time and money. Research takes a long time. We do very in-depth videos that require me to do a lot of reading and thinking. I have to buy a lot of comic books and movies.

TF: This is similar to something you hear a lot from creators who are using platforms like Vimeo On Demand and Vessel. It’s not just about increased revenue, it also frees up time to do more involved work because they’re not constantly producing enough videos to make a living from ad revenue. Is this something you think applies to your work?

CBG19: That’s absolutely a thing. We feel YouTube, in a way, supports shorter-form. You have to constantly produce content to keep your audience happy. What you can put out isn’t always as satisfying. We have lots of ideas for videos, like more things with puppetry and all sorts of weird things, but we don’t have time. Our work is more exciting and has more substance on Vimeo. The funding with that is so much more than what we receive from YouTube. A lot of people have never bought content before…we want to encourage “cyber-patronage.” We want to continue to make the stuff we want to make, and not be censored by anyone else. We have to stay independent. That’s the dream: We make something, they love it, we pour their money into new and better projects.

TF: Online video is predominantly skewed toward short-form content. Why do you think long-form videos have done so well for you?

CBG19: We believe short-term attention spans are kind of a myth. It’s the quality of content that matters, more so than the time. There are a lot of younger people on the Internet, and a lot of the younger people really do have more of a shorter attention span, but there are also millions of other people who have longer attention spans. There’s a hole in the market beyond superficial discussions about art and popular culture. We’re creating more of a complex conversation about movies and pop culture, for people who want something to sink their teeth into. It’s YouTube’s platform that rewards shorter videos, because someone on YouTube makes the same with a one minute video as with a long one.

TF: Could short-form work with video on-demand?

CBG19: I believe there is a place for short-form video content on demand. You would have to release a series, and people would pay to see the whole series. You would have to offer them a longer version of a short-form series. You also need to have a higher production value for content, as opposed to “bedroom vloggers.” What we do is a whole new level of production. But also, I feel long form content is a natural fit for stuff like Vimeo On Demand, because of the YouTube ad revenue model. We’ve always been an anomaly on YouTube. It’s just a natural progression for us to go to Vimeo On Demand, where we’re rewarded for the effort we put into our videos.

Our top selling Vimeo On Demand project, the Epic History for House Baratheon, made as much money as a year of advertising revenue on our whole YouTube channel. It’s a small audience buying it, and our views are far less than on YouTube, but at the end of the day, if it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.

TF: Anything else you’d like to share?

CBG19: YouTube has never been our endgame…We’ve always planned on fitting our audience into that new wave of cyber-patronage. We want our audience on board. It’s a beautiful new world out there for artists who want to keep pure control. That’s of paramount importance to us: not being censored.

You can check out ComicBookGirl19’s ad-supported videos on her YouTube channel and her more in-depth, higher-production-value, and pay-to-view uploads on her Vimeo channel. You can stay up to speed with all her creative endeavors and social media accounts on ComicBookGirl19.com.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News, Vimeo by Sam Gutelle
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MTV has recently scaled up its online video efforts through a digital studio called MTV(other), and the network’s latest web project is now live. Morgan Evans, a video producer who has worked on series like Onion News Network and VH1’s Best Week Ever, is the creative mind behind The Untitled Web Series That Morgan Evans Is Doing For MTV.

Untitled Web Series follows its titular protagonist, played by Evans, as he looks to make it as an aspiring comedian. The long, winding title of Evans’ new series is almost identical to the name of the project Evans debuted in 2012 as part of New York’s long-running Channel 101 NY web series showcase. This time, he’s stapled “For MTV” onto the end of the title, signifying that, while the new version Untitled Web Series may still carry an indie vibe, it is backed and distributed by the Viacom-owned channel.

MTV hired Evans in 2013, and he has since produced several web projects for the TV channel’s digital properties. He co-hosted a Teen Wolf after show alongside YouTube star Anthony “Lohanthony” Spears, and he also created a pair of scripted web series–Teachers’ Lounge and Music Television–that both premiered in 2014.

Evans is one of several producers working with MTV(other). The channel’s digital studio wing has also produced Braless with Laci Green and Decoded with Franchesca Ramsey.

All nine episodes of The Untitled Web Series That Morgan Evans Is Doing For MTV, as well as five shorter half-episodes, can be found on MTV’s official YouTube channel.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, MTV, News by Sam Gutelle
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YouTube has just made watching high frame-rate videos more accessible on mobile devices. The online video site introduced 60 frames-per-second (FPS) support to its iOS and Android apps.

For most YouTube videos, frame rates of 24 or 30 FPS are all a creator needs to produce an easy-to-watch clip. However, YouTube gamers in particular are fond of the 60 FPS format; that frame rate gets rid of the jumpy, laggy image quality, a common problem which plagues creators trying to record game footage, especially on games meant to be viewed at higher definition.

YouTube already introduced 60 FPS video support on its website back in October 2014; the high frame rate is also available on the YouTube app for Apple TVs and PlayStation 3 and 4 consoles. Later, Google’s online video hub started to allow live streams in 60 FPS, as well; some outlets believe that move could be part of YouTube’s strategy to update its live streaming capabilities and take on Amazon-owned Twitch.

VentureBeat notes the 60 FPS video support for YouTube’s mobile app does not include support for 60 FPS live streams. However, the update is being made on YouTube’s server side, so if you already have the iOS or Android app installed, you won’t need to re-install it to start watching crystal-clear videos on your phone.

Filed under: Articles, News, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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A construction project nearly two years in the making has been completed. The Young Turks, whose progressive news and commentary videos have accumulated more than two billion views across a network of related channels, have debuted a new studio space funded by contributions from fans.

The new studio space, designed and fabricated by Erector Sets, contains all the bright colors, flashy screens, and varied camera angles of a modern TV news set. On June 22nd, Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur took the network’s flagship show to the new studio for the first time, and some technical difficulties ensured. “We had a little bit of a delay,” explained Uygur in his opening monologue. “There’s so many monitors and lights in here that, at some point…we blew out a circuit. There’s too much power in here. The problem was the new TYT set is too strong.”

The Young Turks pushed for a new studio after the provider of their previous space, Current TV, was acquired by Al Jazeera. In October 2013, they launched an Indiegogo campaign hoping to raise $250,000 to fund the project. Ultimately, TYT blew that goal out of the water, surpassing it by more than $150,000, and construction on the new facility began shortly thereafter. As the new studio began to take shape, The Young Turks provided occasional updates on its status.

With its new home completed, TYT can focus on providing the progressive coverage its 2.1 million subscribers crave. New videos arrive on the network’s primary YouTube channel each day.

Photo credit: Tim Collins/TYT

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, The Young Turks by Sam Gutelle
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Madonna received a lot of attention for releasing one of her music videos on live streaming app Meerkat. But Matthew Santoro and Nicole Arbour have also set themselves apart as live streaming pioneers. The duo of YouTube stars recently filmed a music video entirely with the Twitter-owned live streaming app Periscope.

Arbour and Santoro filmed every shot of “Fun Revolution” using Periscope streams before compiling the clips into a full-length video on YouTube. The YouTubers have appeared in each other’s Periscope streams before, particularly on Arbour’s Periscope-based show #TheScope (which is the first of its kind on that platform). So when Arbour wanted to create “Fun Revolution,” she enlisted Santoro to help direct and appear in the music video.

Arbour’s music video started as a branded entertainment piece for Awake Chocolate. The 30-year-old YouTuber, comedian, and recording artist told Tubefilter how she wanted to do something different with “Fun Revolution.” Arbour realized an immersive Periscope experience integrating fan appearances and comments, as well as inside jokes from her and Santoro’s live stream histories, would do just that.

“On the brand side, I’ve created a ton of branded entertainment, but with this we wanted to do something more than just a shout out, or product placement,” Arbour wrote in an email. “Awake Chocolate was awesome to work with, just let me run with my idea, and are super happy with the results!”

As for Santoro, he can’t get enough of Periscope. The Canadian vlogger, who boasts over 4.2 million YouTube subscribers and a brand-new book deal, holds the title of #1 North American Periscoper with over 87 million hearts (which are akin to likes on Facebook posts).

“I see major potential for the platform, which is why I’ve gone all-in on it!” Santoro explained. “As a YouTuber first and foremost, I’m finding many people who discover me on Periscope end up going to watch my content on YouTube. It’s great!”

You can watch the “Fun Revolution” music video on Arbour’s YouTube channel. Arbour has also included several bonus and behind-the-scenes videos related to the music video, such as a clip about how to recreate Arbour’s makeup look and a dance tutorial to learn the routine performed in “Fun Revolution.”

Filed under: Articles, Matthew Santoro, News by Bree Brouwer
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If watching Mamrie Hart’s YouTube channel has taught us anything, it’s that there’s never a bad time for a little tipple, and the AM is no exception to that rule. The boozy comedienne behind You Deserve A Drink whipped up a morning cocktail during a June 29th appearance alongside Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford on NBC’s Today Show.

Hart appeared on Today to promote her new book (also titled You Deserve A Drink), which has become a New York Times bestseller since its release on May 26th. Hart’s book includes cocktail recipes based around significant events, and during her Today appearance, she mixed up one of those drinks: The Bad Apple, which celebrates Hart’s initial arrival in New York City. She created a custom potable for Hoda and Kathie Lee by using one ingredient for each initial in their names: Hard liquor, Kiwi, Lychee, [Pinot] Grigio, and, um, Kiwi again.

Hart’s You Deserve A Drink book tour has also taken her to several other programs, including Jenny McCarthy’s Sirius XM radio show and AOL’s daily morning show, Rise. She isn’t the only YouTube star to promote her book on Today–others who have appeared on the NBC morning show include Michelle Phan and Hart’s bestie Grace Helbig–but I’m willing to wager she was more tipsy during her appearance than the rest of them.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Mamrie Hart, News by Sam Gutelle
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Facebook is trying out a new viewability metric for its video ads. The social media site is working with select brands on a cost-per-view basis, where advertisers can choose to pay for a video ad only once it has been viewed for at least ten seconds.

Previously, Facebook charged advertisers each time a video ad came into view on users’ feeds. However, even though marketers had to pay for these impressions, the on-screen presence of an ad didn’t always translate to active viewership. Facebook considers a view to include at least three seconds of watch time; if users pause the auto-play ads before this time frame, they aren’t likely to know who or what the ad is about, and brands would still have to pay for the impression.

Facebook’s ten-second video view test will roll out to the site’s own ad-buying and analytics tools, as well as to tools from third parties that support Facebook ad-buying. Advertisers who are leery of the cost-per-view model can still choose to pay each time their ads come into view, as reported by AdAge.

“One of the requests that we’ve been hearing in the market for quite some time is a way for our marketers to be able to buy based on guaranteed view,” said Facebook’s VP of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson. “It’s really for those marketers who value video views as the best proxy for a business objective.”

Everson was referencing ever-growing concern among marketers about viewability standards and measurements. Many marketers don’t want to waste dollars on ads which aren’t even viewed by consumers, and some brands even refuse to advertise on sites which don’t allow them to bring in third-party viewability verification tools. Twitter recently tried to combat this video advertising industry concern by ensuring marketers 100% viewability after at least three seconds of play time on a video ad.

This new ad testing comes on the heels of a recent announcement from Facebook about how the site tracks users’ interest in video content. While Facebook considers sharing and liking as signs of users’ desire to see more videos of similar content, the social site’s engineers realized not all viewers do either of those actions. Therefore, Facebook now takes into account other user actions, such as turning on a video’s sound, when determining what content to show in News Feeds.

While Facebook’s new ten-second view standard may be a step in the right direction in the eyes of some marketers, AdAge notes Facebook doesn’t think the ten-second video view ad format is really what’s best for brands. Instead, the site is encouraging marketers stick with its dedicated ad-buying tools if they really want to ensure consumers watch the video ads purchased for the social site, because those tools can be adjusted and targeted at specific groups of consumers who are most likely to watch the video ad.

“We believe that we are better off using our reach and frequency options, but we know that we have to be responsive to what clients are asking for and not just have one solution,” Everson explained.

Filed under: Articles, Facebook, News by Bree Brouwer
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Collective Digital Studio has a new series that will appeal to YouTube’s foodie crowd. The multi-channel network debuted the food game show series Win it for the Bar on the newly-launched Beer ‘N Stuff channel on June 29, 2015.

In Win it for the Bar, random bar and pub customers must correctly answer a set of food-inspired questions for a chance to win the entire establishment a round of free eats. The show host poses as the bartender, and then asks one bar patron, who unknowingly sat down in the hot seat, the culinary trivia questions. If the patron answers all questions correctly, everyone wins food; if the patron misses a question, he or she must buy someone a beer.

The first episode of Win it for the Bar features host and undercover bartender Harley Morenstein, a fitting role considering his food-focused job in Epic Meal Time.

You can catch all future episodes of Win it for the Bar on the Beer ‘N Stuff channel, which a CDS rep confirms will also serve up plenty of other food-based original series in the next few months. YouTube stars who will appear on future episodes of other CDS original series include Elliott Morgan, J.D. Witherspoon, Steve Zaragoza, and Matthew Santoro (who just scored his first book deal through Penguin Canada).

Filed under: Articles, News, The Collective Digital Studio by Bree Brouwer
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As we learned from one of Community’s best ever episodes, Ken Burns’ heralded documentary films are also ripe targets for parody. Now, Machinima is taking aim at Burns’ signature filmmaking style with Real Fake History, a mockumentary that pretends pop culture stories are historical events.

Each episode of Real Fake History dives into a different pop culture franchise. Across ten installments, the series will visit everything from Starship Troopers to Game of Thrones to Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. The first episode, however, treads upon the familiar nerd territory of Star Wars by examining the Battle of Endor. Narrator Phil Morris (Seinfeld’s Jackie Chiles) leads the way, The Guild co-star Jeff Lewis provides the most comedic punch, and, as it does in real Ken Burns documentaries, the camera slowly pans across every single image it encounters. It’s pretty fun stuff, though the commenters seem more interesting in explaining how, contrary to the video’s explanation, the Stormtroopers are NOT clones. Never change, Star Wars fans.

Beyond Lewis, Real Fake History’s cast also includes several other notable names from the online video community. Specifically, Sandeep Parikh and Tony Janning of The Legend of Neil fame are both slated to appear.

New episodes of Real Fake History will arrive each Tuesday. Subscribe to the main Machinima YouTube channel if you’d like to stay up to date with the series.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Machinima.com, News by Sam Gutelle
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It’s official. French media conglomerate Vivendi, which owns Universal Music Group and the French TV company Canal Plus, has finished its acquisition of online video site Dailymotion for €217 million, a sum equivalent to roughly $241 million.

Rumors started circulating back in April 2015 about Vivendi’s intentions to purchase Dailymotion, which claims to be the #1 most-visited European site in the entire world, as per a January 2015 Comscore finding. At the time, Deadline estimated Vivendi would offer €250 million ($272 million) for a 75-80% stake in Dailymotion. If that offer had gone through, Dailymotion’s estimated worth would have been about $350 million. Vivendi’s final acquisition price now puts Dailymotion’s value somewhere in the $300-$310 million range.

According to Variety, Vivendi can now use Dailymotion’s assets and original content to help Universal Music Group and Canal Plus attract more millennial viewers. Variety notes Vivendi property Canal Plus is already active on YouTube with about 30 channels, and Vivendi’s Studio Bagel brand runs 11 YouTube channels and creates original and branded content for Canal Plus.

Dailymotion started investing in original series back in February 2014 with musician interview series Feedback Kitchen, and launched the cops-and-robbers-style show Jump Outs a few months later. More recently, the online video site debuted Dailymotion Games, a live streaming platform aimed at eSports and gaming enthusiasts.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, News by Bree Brouwer
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